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The PCC ('''Presidents' Conference Committee''') '''streetcar''' ( Tram ) design was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II was licensed for use elsewhere in the world. The PCC car has proved to be a longlasting icon of streetcar design, and PCC cars are still in service in various places around the world. ORIGINS , in the 1950s]] The unusual name comes from the fact that the car was Design ed by a Committee , formed in 1929, representing various Electric street railways. The Electric Railway Presidents' Conference Committee, or '''ERPCC''', was tasked with producing a new type of streetcar that would help fend off competition from Bus es and Automobile s. The committee produced a high-performance design that was commonly used in the following decades. The cars were popular because of their distinctive Streamlined design and smooth Acceleration . It turned out that, reputedly unlike many other things produced by committees, the PCC streetcar was a very good basic design. Many railways altered the car in various ways to fit their own needs, but most cars retained a standard appearance. The first batch of 100 cars was built in 1936 for Brooklyn, New York, by the Saint Louis Car Company; the Los Angeles Railway (LARy) was one of the first companies to purchase the units. The second order built (27), following Brooklyn was for Baltimore, also by Saint Louis Car Company. ]]s and Heritage Railway s. The early pre- World War II versions of these vehicles were known as air cars and used a belt-driven Air Compressor to open the doors and operate Brake s. Later models were entirely electric, replacing the noisy compressor and Air Brake s with electrically activated brakes on the motor shafts. Both pre-war and post-war cars use Dynamic Brake s to provide most of the stopping power. The air or electric brakes bring the car to a complete stop. MANUFACTURING -built Fiat/PCC running in Madrid in 1969]] , had a boxier shape.]] PCC cars were initially built in the United States by the St. Louis Car Company and Pullman Standard . One example was built by Clark Equipment with an aluminum body. PCC cars for Canadian cities were built jointly by St. Louis Car Co. and Canada Car And Foundry in Montréal , Quebec . The PCC technology was exported to Europe , with La Brugeoise et Nivelles (now the BN division of Bombardier ) of Bruges , Belgium , building several hundred streetcars that saw service in Brussels , Antwerp , Ghent , The Hague (Den Haag), Saint-Étienne , Marseille and Belgrade (the latter city buying vehicles initially used by the Belgian Vicinal Railways ). The first European PCC cars were probably the ones developed in 1942 by Italian Fiat for the Madrid tramway system. Due to the progression of World War II , delivery of the units from Italy had to be stopped, and eventually 110 cars were built in Spain to the Fiat design, either by CAF (''Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles'') in Beasain or '''MMC''' (''Material Móvil y Construcciones'') in Zaragoza . These units worked very successfully in Madrid until 1972. ČKD Tatra of Prague also bought a PCC licence, and built thousands of PCC based streetcars. Most successful was type Tatra T3 , 13 991 units were sold worldwide, mainly in former Eastern Bloc countries. ČKD had begun marketing to the rest of the world until 2000, when the company faced a bankruptcy and reorganization. The tram business was sold to Siemens SKV, who discontinued these products in favor of Siemens-designed models. Another Eastern European company producing PCC cars (though not licensed) was Polish Konstal in Chorzów , Upper Silesia . The Konstal 13N type was a copy of the CKD Tatra T1 and is still used in Warsaw . Newer Konstal 105N types, produced since 1973, had the PCC electrical set. After many modernizations, the upgraded type Konstal 105Na and later versions based on it are still produced (though with modern electronic equipment) by Konstal, which was bought by Alstom in 1997. 105Na generation cars are still used in all tram-towns in Poland. PCCS STILL IN ACTIVE SERVICE North America PCC #3254 leaving the Ashmont Station bound for Mattapan, on the Ashmont-Mattapan High Speed Line .]] In North America, most PCC-based systems were dismantled in the post-war period in favor of bus-based transit networks. Of the rail transit systems that survived this period, most had replaced their PCCs with modern Light Rail vehicles (LRVs) by the early 1980s. A few sites have only recently concluded operation with PCCs:
As of 2005, there are still a few places in North America where transit agencies employ PCCs in true revenue service (as opposed to short-run or intermittent heritage railway service). Of these, only one has been in service continuously since the PCC's glory days: #1061, a rebuilt PCC streetcar painted in honor of the Pacific Electric Railway , is seen in service on the F Market Heritage line in December, 2004. This single-ended car was originally built for the City of Philadelphia in 1946. (Pacific Electric only operated double-ended PCC's.)]]
Beginning in the late 1990s, several cities began to make use of historic PCCs to serve historic streetcar lines that combined aspects of tourist attractions and transit:
's Route 15 in Philadelphia .]]
As many cities contemplate new transit projects, PCC-based streetcar lines are an attractive option as they are relatively low cost and can serve as a tourist attraction in and of themselves, especially on routes through historic city centers. Europe -built Tatra T3 PCC cars are still common in eastern Europe.]] Pre-war tram networks remain largely intact in a number of European cities, and many still use PCCs as part or all of their rolling stock. Late-model PCCs remain in use in Belgium . The vehicles used in Antwerp and Ghent vehicles are Metre Gauge , while those used in Brussels are Standard Gauge . One of the peculiarities of the Brussels PCC vehicles is that some of them have been equipped with Bogies and Electric Motor s acquired second-hand in the United States from decommissioned streetcars from Kansas City, Missouri , and Johnstown, Pennsylvania . The tram system of Sofia , Bulgaria has 16 lines totaling 221 km served by 190 trams, some of which are Tatra PCCs. In Romania, Bucharest 's extensive tramway network features a large fleet of Tatra T4R PCCs. Several tramways in the Czech Republic and Slovakia still use Tatra PCC cars, while many in Poland still operate Konstal PCCs. Some in the former East Germany also still use them, but many have been extensively modified. PCCS IN POP CULTURE Although few cities have run PCCs since 1960, they are still quite identifiable as streetcars and, because of their 1930s-era deco, streamlined design, quite aesthetically pleasing. PCC streetcars were featured prominently in a Dockers ad campaign in which two PCC cars operating on San Francisco's Embarcadero Line pass each other, and a man and woman, after making eye contact, each jump out of their seats, miss the streetcar on the other track only to find that they are united as the cars pull away. SEE ALSO
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